


The Past Doesn't Define You

by HopeShannon3000



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Abuse, Bullying, Child Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-09
Updated: 2018-05-09
Packaged: 2019-05-04 11:16:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14591841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HopeShannon3000/pseuds/HopeShannon3000
Summary: Oliver learns about a part of Felicity's life she'd had tried to keep hidden and tried to forget.





	The Past Doesn't Define You

Felicity's mom had come to visit for the last week, finally she was leaving tomorrow she went out shopping wanting to pick up a few new clothing items to take back and the supermarket since Oliver and Felicity had been too busy to go shopping, when Felicity walked in that evening she found Oliver and Donna packing away the food. It seem quiet too quiet especially since mom was here and she could chat on about anything and everything.

“Everything okay?” Felicity sat on a stool at the kitchen island putting her bag on the floor  
“Yeah i just saw someone today who i never expected to see” Donna starting gathering tin cans in bulks, putting them away as fast as she could  
“Oooo who?” Felicity smiled, must be someone good to have mom in such a frenzy   
“Mark Adams” Felicity’s smiled dropped “and that jerk had the nerve to smile at me!” Donna threw the fruits she just picked up into the fruit bowl   
“Who’s Marks Adams?” Oliver piped in, Felicity hadn’t told Oliver this part of her life for a good reason   
“He’s this guy….” Donna started “He is know one important and that’s the end of it” Felicity interrupted, She moved away from the kitchen into the bedroom, she just wanted to be alone right now her mom mentioning HIS name always reminded Felicity of what he had done, she had for years managed to suppress these memories but they all come flooding back at once.

“So who is Marks Adams?” Oliver turned to Donna who was looking down at the food  
“I would love to tell you but i think it should come from Felicity” Donna turned away putting the shopping away once again. Oliver didn’t think he and Felicity kept secrets but it seemed she had one big one from him, he wanted to press more get something out of Donna but she was right Felicity needed to him herself and he wasn’t going to just let it go.

___________________________________________________________________

It had been a week since Donna had left, she had told Felicity to be careful not wanting her to run into Mark herself. Felicity would love to say if she did run into him she’d give him a piece of her mind but she knows she wouldn’t, she’d be too scared. In the wake of all these bad memories she’d started to pull away from Oliver it’s not that she wanted too but she feels she has too, she knows he’s going to ask at some point and when he does she’ll have to talk not being able to escape it anymore, then he’d leave her, realizing she's too broken. 

It was late on a Friday night, Felicity had just changed into her pink vest shirt and light blue pj bottoms with butterflies on, she’d took her makeup and glasses off was snuggled into bed when Oliver came out the bathroom steam surrounding him, he was shirtless in his grey sweatpants, he went over to the door, switching the main light on he wasn’t letting her sleep just yet. Felicity stayed where she was, maybe if he thought she was asleep he’d give up

“Felicity, i know your not asleep so please get up” Felicity signed and slowly got up leaning back on the headboard, Oliver took the place next to her. “Talk to me Felicity”   
“About what?” She huffed, she wouldn’t make it easy  
“You’ve been pulling away ever since your mom mentioned that Mark guy, i need to know why? Was he an ex of yours?”  
“Oh god no” Felicity cringed at the thought of that “He’s my moms ex”   
“Then please tell me why him being mentioned has made you pull away like this?” She knew she had to tell him but knew where it would lead. He’d leave her. She wasn’t ready to lose him yet.  
“If i tell you, i know what will happen, so if you really want to know i will tell you but it’s on your head what happens next” Oliver thought about this, he didn’t know what she meant by happen next but he could handle it whatever it was  
“Deal” Felicity couldn’t believe she was going to have to tell this story, one she had tried to push down and forget.

 

“Fine! He and my mom met through a friend of hers after my dad left, he started coming round more and i thought he was just her friend but they was dating then he moved in and things started getting rough” Oliver nodded along he didn’t see what was so bad so far “and by rough i mean abusive” Oliver froze now he could understand why her mom was in such a mood “he completely isolated us from friends and family, it’s why we don’t talk to family anymore. It started off small just a few nasty comments here and there but got worse” 

“Did he ever hit you or your mom?” Oliver asked, he didn’t know if he wanted the answers or not

“Yeah but that was him being nice, he use beat my mom alot but i only realized when i was older half of those beatings where for me she just stood in the way and took them for me. She couldn’t save me from everything though, she had to work so i was left alone. If i miss behaved which for him meant breathing wrong then he’d run a freezing cold bath and make me stay in that bath then he’d come in and throw my head under the water till i was thrashing around” Oliver couldn’t believe someone could be so nasty to two people who are nothing but kind “Then he’d bring my head back up and do it again and again, it's why i don’t like water much or if i was ‘bad’ in winter he’d throw my into the backyard late at night naked for hours” Felicity’s eyes filled with tears, she always cried when she told this story it always too much to bare 

“He liked torment us and with out family and friends gone we had no one to turn too, he use throw things at me like batteries or i was working on a project and was a little loud he’d come in and rip away my project and beat me for it. I use to hear my mom and him fight at night i always ended up crying because he was trying to kick her out, telling her she was to leave me behind, i use to think she’d leave me with him but she never did. Only place i could go was school but i got bullied there too, i was the poor girl who no one wanted to be friends with, every class i went too there was always someone to bully me no matter what, there was no escape” Felicity was sobbing, crossing her arms across her stomach “Everyone always thinks that all you have to do is tell them to get out and it’s not that simple! My mom tried for years to get rid of him and he wouldn’t go. In the end school and social services got involved i don’t know what was said or done but he ran taking half of our belongings with him.” she ended there not wanting to go into anymore detail, this was all she could bare to tell him, telling the story made her relive the events, she couldn't handle that anymore.

"It was all my fault" Felicity whispered bending her knees slightly leaning onto them   
"Felicity it's not your fault, why would you think that?" Oliver turned on the bed facing her  
"My mom asked me if i liked him, he was nice at first so i said yes but if i had been smarter i could have seen past his lies and saved us both from that pain" Felicity cried out, she'd always carry this guilt with her  
"Felicity you was a kid, you didn't know. You can't blame yourself. Neither you or mom knew he'd turn out like this" Oliver rubbed Felicity’s back trying to comfort her “Why didn’t you tell me this before?”  
Felicity brushed away her tears, looking anywhere but at him “Because in the past when i’ve told a guy, they’d look at me like i’m broken then they’d leave saying i have too much baggage, i didn’t want that with you. I’m just afraid that one day you’ll wake up and realized you married a broken little loser and then you’d leave too”  
Oliver tucked a finger under her chin lifting her head, forcing her to look at him “I’m not going to leave, i hate what happened to you and your mom but it made you who you are. Your a lot stronger than you know, those other guys weren’t good enough for you. I promise you ever point this Mark guy out to me i will beat him up myself, we’ll see how he likes it”   
Felicity huffed out a laugh, she fell forward landing on Oliver’s chest while he rubbed her back.   
“I love you”  
“I love you too”

She knew she had a long road ahead of her, she still had some issues that she thought she’d put to bed around, it might help to get some therapy actually start working through what happened instead of trying to forget. Oliver was right she was strong, she went through 5 years of abuse and turned out not half bad, she didn’t bully people or want to hurt people normally someone young who witnessed abuse sometimes turned out like their abuser but she hadn’t, she was better than that! She had her own company, made new friends, had a new purpose in life with Team arrow, married the man she loves and got a step son who she’d never hurt. The abuse from one man didn’t turn her into a weak person it made her stronger because she got through it and so did many other men and women and children out there, they are all heroes in their own way, they didn’t give up and kept fighting back and won. She'd love to say the past didn't define her but it did, without that pain she wouldn't be who she was.

**Author's Note:**

> This was hard for me to write, my family did go through 8 years of domestic violence so i used what me and my family went through for this story. They always say to write from experience.


End file.
